Games in Progress at the Ontario Science Centre

If you are looking for something to do this Thursday or just want to meet some really cool people, you should pop on over to the Ontario Science Centre for Games in Progress. It's from 10 am to 8pm in the Procter & Gamble Great Hall, Level 2. There will be plenty of local indie game companies showing off what they currently have in development. You can demo the games and chat with the developers and designers about their process, research and development. Rocket 5 Studios will be there demoing their new game I have been helping out with as well as other groups like Snakehead Games and Microsoft Indie Game Studios.

Click the logo to go check out the info page on the event

What's up?

Man, it has been a while since I posted! and there have been some bigger gaps in my posts. Life can sure get away from you...which it has. Life ha been very busy with Industry evening at Max the Mutt at the end of May, the day after was graduation, a week later I went into Toronto to speak with some wonderful people at a studio, the day after that I got married. Even after the wedding you are busy with meetings and wrap ups. It was crazy.

So at the moment I am keeping busy with continuing work for Rocket 5 Studios on their iOS game designing, building and texturing assets now. Things seem to be going well with it :)

Also been spending time with Digital Tutors keeping up on the Maya tools that I'm not currently using with asset building. Fluids and nCloth has really peaked my interest lately and there are one or two very specific things I want to try and simulate...just have to figure out how to go about it. I will post some clips of these exercises when I get a chance to render them out.

Lastly, I noticed I hadn't spent much time at all lately painting or drawing...so I had to remedy that. I've been doing some sketching for two paintings my husband wants me to make and started another painting. I'd post the sketches...but my printer/scanner hasn't been happy since this heat wave hit. So instead I give you a picture of the painting I have started That I snapped with my cellphone.

Work from undisclosed iOS game

Over the last 5 months I have been contract work for a local indie game company called Rocket 5 Studios. I started off with painting some textures in Photoshop and have gradually been taking on more responsibilities such as modelling, rigging, making the UV maps, and most recently some concept work. I even animated a very basic flapping book that attacks the main character. It's been really crazy balancing graduating, planning a wedding and working on the game but it has been a blast. The game was shown along side some of Rocket 5's other work at the recent Bit Bazaar  at Bento Miso in Toronto. There was a big push to get work done for that deadline so actually, a lot of my most recent work was done in this week before the Bazaar. Hopefully some of you wonderful people got out to check it out. There were so many amazing looking games and awesome people. It's very inspiring to see so many successful games coming from local indie developers.  

Main character: painted the UV maps in Photoshop

The Main character's nemesis: I modeled, rigged, weighted, mapped and textured this guy after being provided some concept sketches. In the end he will have transparencies as well, as there are still a couple passes needed on his texture.

Another character: Tweaked and altered the model and rig of the fat ghost above to create this little guy due to time constraints. Also tweaked weights after animation was applied 

Numerous Prop Models: These models are for props that will be used in game and props that decorate the background. Some were created from scratch based on concept art I was given, others I was given a base model and told to embellish it. All were textured and mapped by me. Most of these only have a couple passes on the texture and will be detailed even more as the game progresses. For example we intend on adding rivets and more wear and tear on the treasure chest.

Some in game renders of the environmental props I created. 

Book Rig: Here I was given one of the solid book models from the game and asked to alter the model, rig it and animate it so it could fly and attack things. 

Bit Bazaar this Saturday

This Saturday, at Bento Miso, in Toronto, there will be a "Bit Bazaar"! Over 20 unique and independent game developers in the area will be showcasing their work and selling limited edition merchandise.

WHAT: A unique zine-fair-meets-arcade.

WHEN: Saturday, May 11, from 12-8 p.m.

WHERE: Bento Miso // 862 Richmond Street West

HOW MUCH: FREE (but bring $$ for snacks + art + crafts) 

The company in Toronto that I have been doing freelance work for, Rocket 5 Studios, will be there showing off "Ghost Hunter", which is what I have been lending a hand with. Go check it out!

click logo to go to website

nCloth Driven Chord

An exercise I did with nCloth on the suggestion of my TA who is a technical director. I modeled and rigged the phone, so the buttons can be keyed if a character was to interact with them. To make the chord I created a cv curve and then extruded a nurbs circle along and around the curve to get the spiral chord. I then created an nCloth object from a high res plane that I put inside the chord. I adjusted the collisions on the nCloth so it surrounded the phone chord and then hid the nCloth. I then made this nCloth drive the movement of the spiraled phone chord.

Various Experiments

Finally got this thing rendered out. It took a week to render all the layers. So this is an experiment of nCloth and fluids and particles. Learned a lot from it, mainly how nCloth functions in Maya. I would probably create the robe differently now that I understand it a bit better. Also started to understand all the various nodes in the fluids attributes and what they do. I realize I should probably brush up on my science to get a better grasp of how fire and water works to get a realistic look in the computer.

Finally Finished Rig!!!

Well, it took me a couple days but I finally got this guy rigged and skinned and with IK controls so I can plug him into my alley and get him moving. I'll worry about the dynamics later.